Evil A Comparative Overview

The rebirth or revival of academic philosophical interest in the problem of evil has a precise date: September 11, 2001. The terrorist assaults of that day, notably the attacks against the World Trade Center in New York, which claimed the lives of an estimated 3,000 civilians, have come to trigger, or dominate, many a subsequent philosophical discussion of evil. The idea of cosmic evil as linked with moral evil through karma was first formulated in more or less philosophical terms in the Upanishads, and further developed in later texts like the Bhagavad Gita. The Bhagavad Gita marks a further refinement of karmic law with its distinction of discipline through action, knowledge and devotion. It also appears to see evil in terms of human action rather than natural or cosmic events. Islamic ideas about evil and theodicy are developed in rather more sophisticated terms by later philosophers like Ibn Sina.